FORTUNE-TELLING FRAUDS.

NZ Truth, Issue 76, 1 December 1906, Page 6

FORTUNE-TELLING FRAUDS.

Sad Story of Silly, Sickening, Superstition. Those .dastardly people, the fortune tellers, who live on the credulousness of unfortunate women, and who ought to be incontinently jugged, are to the fore atrain m Ohristchurch. They advertise fairly liberally at cheap rates m the evening dish-wallops; and the. only persons who don't take notice of them are the police and the -more sensible individuals' who comprise the community. These dirty-handed slatterns who pretend to see fortunes m tea cups, and m the lay of the cards, and m the stars, or the lines of the fist that contains good silver, are the worst of undesirables m every respect, ' and they get up to all sorts of capers (at the expense of their virtue mostly) to get servant girls and country yokels into their fifthrate parlors' there to 'describe, the future that isn't m store for them. Writer has read of more than one girl who has suicided rather than face a life of disappointment. Mayhap she hadn't offered : ■ . . THE OLD HARRIDAN enough cash to predict a golden future. Also, these obnoxious females who bilk people into believing what' they evolve from.' their imagination" on the spur of. the moment- frequently cause trouble between man arid wife when they become private h r aware that one or other of them has been acting the giddy ox or the frolicsome nanny ; goat. A . Christchurch man has been .complaining m bitter terms of a happenine: to^ his sick wife, and all thronnh ' ■■v\med interference of his confounded mother-ih-law. The wif?. ; ' "• s.vk f'a've birth to a child, and all was Sir Garnet for a time, but then she took crook again, and went, along to sta^ with her beloved mother. THIS SUPERSTITIOUS HAG believes m these pestiferous nevson.s,'i the future telling frauds, arid when the doctor couldn't, -bring the girl round to her normal state of health, she dragged m one and paid her a handful . of cash to get an opinion' as to what should be done. This; ; made the .professional she-pirate a wpiiian i of- importance, ,'and she gravely in-- ; formed the' pair of dupes, per riiedriitn •-. of a pack of soiled cards, that the doctor didn't know his blasted business and that the girl wasn't suffer- ; m"- from the complaint lie said she was at all. This put a different com- \ plexion on matters, and the catient i was natural^ put out something con- | sdderaMe. Here had her' husband j been naying good gold to a quack, or j something of the sort, she was not one. whit the better, and he was j treating her for a trouble from which j she was not suffering— and" she believed all this from the say-so of a voluptuous, PIMPLY-FACED, FROWSY OLD MEDDLER , who professed to know everything from a lousy-looking pack of. cards. Well, the husband called along at this stage and made a few observations about the forturo teller which were of a most 'lurid nature. But he could not get his wife to think that the bloated humbug was wrong, and that she ought to be m chokey. The mother always interfered, and as she looked upon the blastiferous fortuheteller's word. as Jaw the man's life, was made miserable. So he looked up the doctor some more, , but even the latter couldn't convince th? deluded woman that she was being imposed upon ; so the husband removed her to a private hospital, and then to the country, where she improved after a while. Then THE BITCH OF A STAR-GAZER, or whatever she calls herself, stepped m again, and told the mother that the victim should be removed once more to the town, and m she came, but the inevitable happened and she is worse to-day than ever, so lie says and this accursed . witch is , boss of the show ; yet the fellow, who is only a laboring man, hasn't got the nous to go round to the police and complain, and get her run m for telling alleged fortunes, or under the vag, or anything of that kind . that would fill the -bill and put her where she ought to be. Nothing could be simpler, yet this simple-minded soon r er- does nothing— absolutely nothing; In the case of some men that break-: er-ii" of-ihames would be .speedily j woodened out, and the mother-in-law : would be quickly made to think nuite a thing or two, and superstition would get such an awful knock on , its proboscis that the community would hear of it ; even the police might hear of it, m fact— one never knows— and a lot of THESE SEMT HARLOTS who live on the gullibility of people m Ohristchurch, imposing on the gulls of all classes, would be sent to live at Lyttelton for'o 4 term at the expense of the community and the . community wouldn't mind the darned I ex^pnse. Superstition is o hard thinp* ' ! to knock on the head, but the police , can heln to biff it on its way, and ! the Magistrate can do thp rest, j These unspeakable 'Parasites are ' makiTi"- a rare harvest 'm Chnstj church just now at the exwnse of the : peace and hamMiTess (m many instances) of respectable families. The "oli^e onl" net snnßmo'li^fvUv m ri^aiinr witli flips 1 " tipt'qiic r>f dubious character— +hev ■ sho»*-'"' keep on actinp. , • I